


Not Marrakesh

by Ark



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Het, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Sex, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-08 07:12:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ark/pseuds/Ark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha is the only one who knows about Phil. Knew about Phil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Natasha is the only one who knows about Phil. Knew about Phil. 

She saw it on Clint, smelled it on him, spied the way he was with Phil, so Natasha is the only one who comforts him at first. 

“I'm sorry about him, for you,” she says, the day after they save the city, her hand on the back of Clint's neck where the collar rose. Stark had offered them rooms in the Tower, and Clint had accepted, because Fury said he could, and he wasn't sure what else to do. Natasha probably accepted the accommodations because Clint looked like he was coming apart in stitches.

He's a member of some kind of PR-dream superteam fucking _circus_ now and his S.H.I.E.L.D. status is up in the air, and he's been a traitor and he has no handler and Phil is dead. 

“Thank you, Tasha.” She lets her hand fall away, and Clint snatches it back. It's completely irrational, but he's so far deep in his head he's beginning to feel unmoored if someone else isn't touching him, keeping him grounded. Phil had been good at that. That's why they had put Phil on him in the first place. S.H.I.E.L.D. had started it, really.

“Can I?” Clint asks. It's been a while, and he's been a traitor, and he hesitates.

She looks mildly affronted. “Of course. This is hardly Marrakesh.” 

So some days after that when he can process the idea of being around other people again, Clint goes to her room next door and is welcomed. No, this is hardly Marrakesh, where an arrogant sonofabitch had once broken Clint's heart, and after that he and Natasha had sucked in hookah bowl after hookah bowl of hashish and drank strong smuggled liquors and Clint had beat his breast and nearly his head out over some worthless face he couldn't remember with a great body that he still could. No, this isn't Marrakesh at all. In her own flat way Natasha is trying to tell him she sort of understands what he and Phil had been. Not Marrakesh.

She takes him straight to bed. Clint can never get enough of her body: stronger and more resilient than any woman or man he's ever loved or ever had. They're open and acclimated to each other above all the partners they have known. 

That was their problem: they were _too_ good together and it inevitably got boring and they both got restless. They shared so few secrets and too much truth between them that the spark was dead after a weekend here or there -- no hidden corners, no kinks to be uncovered. 

Natasha knew everything about him, and he knew far too much about her, and the sex was fantastic, and excellent, and gymnastic, and unmoving. They laughed about it afterward, scoring each other in the dark. It was a different kind of affection.

Phil's fingers rubbing friction into the buzzcut of his hair. Phil's body wrapping around him in the dark, both of them too fucked-out for speech. All of Phil made of secrets. There is no room for laughter sometimes with Phil, and Clint likes that. Clint had liked that.

He buries himself between Natasha's thighs so the course of thought changes, and god she smells so good and ready and he adores the way she groans when he licks her and how she won't stop when he doesn't. She's gorgeous and he loves her and she's different from Phil in every way, in every possible way. 

Clint knows her body well, like the back of his hand, like a bow in his hand, that's the problem with them, but it helps now to know exactly how to make her come shuddering under his mouth and cleverly drawn fingers. She reaches for him and pulls him up and in so easily, they slide together so well, and Clint exhales into her hair and tries to let himself go. Lets her take over and take control and secure the situation, turns so that Natasha is atop him, over him, helping him ride out the ragged pain and the jagged anguish. It's so good and she's so good and he loves her so fucking much if they ever take her from him he thinks the world might end.

Afterward Natasha pets his hair idly, absently, when he lies down close. “You can tell me if you want. Can't keep going around looking like a Shakespearean tragedy before people start asking more questions than they already are, sweet Barton.” 

“Not much to tell,” lies Clint, who thinks he could write several Bible-size epics on the state of Phil, who Agent Phil Coulson was and wasn't and maybe who he might have been one day behind all the shields and top secrets. So he tells most of the truth. “Made the mistake of getting involved when he was handling me. Cliché, I know.” It's not all of the truth because he doesn't think it was a mistake. It wasn't a mistake.

“Amateur hour,” agrees Natasha, but with the tone that is her most gentle, so he goes on. “We were...I don't know. We were good.”

No one in the world better at keeping him in line than Phil, who had trained at it. Phil, who scored top marks in everything, who had earned top marks in reigning in Clint Barton and making him a ready weapon in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hands. In Phil's hands. 

Maybe they had trained him how to best fuck a Clint Barton type. Probably they had.

Days ago -- days? Weeks -- Phil's hands had been hard and firm on Clint's hips, marking bruises. Clint on his hands and knees, Phil holding him still while he took him roughly from behind. Fingers tugging at Clint's short hairs, the best sort of burn save the one from Phil's relentless cock. Both of them quiet because it was too good to vocalize, and words formed secrets that were precious and coveted and dangerous.

They were good. Had been good.

That night Natasha lets him hold onto her -- a rare thing, she hated long-term constriction -- and she holds onto him when he wakes up, which is too often, and sometimes she rocks or fucks him back to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Clint starts sleeping more after that, and sleeping more with Natasha, until it becomes clear that the welcome's growing overstayed. One evening when they're in bed and he can barely muster the enthusiasm to lick and suck her brilliantly poised pink nipple and she can barely muster the energy to care, she has an idea. So mostly it's Natasha's fault for setting it all in motion. 

She pushes Clint away with a friendly shove. “C'mon. We have to keep you distracted and you have the attention span of the bird from which you draw your name. We need playmates, and I think I know just the ones.”

She isn't dressing, is only shrugging into a tiny black silk robe, which means they're staying in the Tower. 

Clint is in boxer-briefs and a ratty old t-shirt, watching her open-mouthed. “Seriously? You're serious.”

Natasha is always serious, even when she's smiling like she is now. Especially with that smile. “Come _on_ , Barton. I should've thought of this before. This is a phenomenal idea.”

In the elevator she punches in the code for the penthouse and he turns to look at her again. “Really?” 

They haven't shared a bed with others since Stockholm, since a lovely, free-spirited, very blonde couple had propositioned them in a bar. That had been a drunken evening of blurred vision and sweaty limbs and tangled bodies in a bed. That isn't going to solicit their friends for sex.

Natasha gives a slight nod, sounding sure. “It's a good exercise in team bonding. And it'll be good for you. And they'll like it. You trust me, don't you?”

He does. He doesn't refute it. Clint stands quietly as they go the long way up to the top. Stark hadn't even made the semblance of giving Dr. Banner his own room, had just taken him by the arm and marched him straight to his suite and installed him there. Clint hasn't seen either of them very much since.

Natasha speaks with Tony's A.I. butler, and then they're being admitted into a living room the size of a McDonald's.

On a leather couch half as wide, Tony and Bruce are sitting with a movie paused. They sit close together, Tony's arm draped loose over Bruce's shoulder, scotch in hand, Bruce sitting sideways with his bare toes tucked under Tony's leg. They're fully clothed but it's so intimate and it kicks a beehive in his chest and Clint thinks maybe they should leave immediately.

Tony lifts his eyebrows, and Bruce turns and gives them a lopsided smile, and Clint doesn't leave. 

“Anything on fire?” Tony asks. His eyes are on Natasha and Natasha's barely-there covering and all of Natasha's bared skin under silk.

Natasha grins. “Not yet.” It's Tony who can't look away, so she paces towards him as she speaks, and all of them are watching the way her hips move then. “Barton here's in need of some distraction for his melancholia. I'm fresh out of options and positions, boys.”

“Never,” says Tony, licking his lips. Bruce looks at Clint, tilts his tousled head. His warm brown eyes are calm behind glasses. Clint looks back.

It's Bruce who answers for them after a brief exchange of glances. “We'd be happy to help, Natasha. Clint.”

“Team building at its best,” agrees Tony.

“That's what I thought,” says Natasha. She pounces on Tony from five feet, and he's already moved to catch her. 

Bruce rolls to safety. He gets up, ignoring the conflagration on the couch, and retrains his steady gaze. Takes a moment, as if evaluating which tack to take, as if Dr. Bruce Banner can scan him and see the things he likes. Clint thinks probably he can. Genius radar or something, the kind for reading people, like Phil had. Phil had had.

Bruce reads him correctly. “Come here, Clint.” Soft, but brokering no arguments. Clint goes.


	3. Chapter 3

Clint has looked at Bruce before, because he has a pulse, but never before like this. Now he gets to appreciate what a finely made man he is, the darkly curled hair with its dusting of silver, the open handsome face, the refined body of elegant musculature and hidden strength. 

Bruce is built more like a regular person than any of them, and Bruce is beautiful but seems unaware of it, even wary of how hot he is, and there are things wonderfully familiar in that about Bruce, and Clint can't stop staring at him now. Paces across the room and close to him as ordered, and stops, and waits. 

It's as though they're in the room alone together. From the couch, Tony and Natasha, people they love profoundly, are exploring one another with fierce, feral thoroughness, but Bruce and Clint are a world away.

Standing in front of him, Clint pulls his t-shirt free. Appreciates the feeling of Bruce's gaze skirting his abs and chest and shoulders, following their deep-set lines. 

Bruce steps into his space, palms a careful hand under Clint's jaw. “There are too many shadows under your eyes,” he says. “Let's change that.” Instead of answering, which is impossible, Clint steps out of his boxer-briefs, which is easy, and then he's naked in the big room. Nearby Natasha and Tony make inarticulate noises. Clint is naked.

“Do you trust me?” Bruce asks, leaning very close, letting Clint divest him of his fine, Stark-borrowed clothing. More out of seeming curiosity than need-to-know.

Clint says, honest, “'Bout as far as I could throw The Hulk,” and Bruce grins, and kisses him. It's a hard, commanding kiss, and when it goes well, when Clint opens under it, he cedes control to Bruce's tongue. Bruce has his hands on him, clever fingers everywhere, God, everywhere, and they're alien and friendly and new and it feels so fucking good and he doesn't have to think about anything but processing the chemical reactions occurring wherever Bruce touches him.

Bruce considers. “Your cock is extremely tempting, and I have half a mind to suck it immediately; but I think I'll fuck you first.” An eyebrow goes up at Clint's visible shudder. “Yes, that's what we'll do. That's what you want, isn't it? You want me to bend you over and split you open. Clint. Look at me when I'm talking about how I'm going to fuck you until you can't remember how to work a slingshot.”

Clint has glanced away and bit his lip hard to keep from speaking, from agreeing, from begging for it. Bruce has read him exactly. Knows exactly how to take him in hand. From the couch Tony says, “More talk like that, babe. JARVIS, are you recording this? You had better be recording this. Just exactly like that,” and then Natasha fixes his busy mouth back into place between her thighs.

“Brace yourself on the back of the couch and get yourself ready for me,” Bruce says.* He's half-hard, fisting his dick while he talks, and even half-hard he's impressive and Clint wants to obey but freezes at the command. He can do a lot, is ready for almost anything, but he can't do that right now, not here in front of JARVIS and everyone. 

Phil with all the lights on. Phil saying, “I want you to spread yourself and get ready for me,” which he said pretty often. Loved to watch Clint writhe with it, pulling himself open with his own fingers, moaning and muttering and fucking himself until he begged for Phil to make it stop, and Phil would, Phil would fuck him all night and twice in the morning because Phil was a morning person --

Clint shakes his head, a tiny motion but clear. Bruce sees and his expression softens even as his voice maintains its sharp edge. “No?” His hands are on Clint's shoulders, pushing him down, so that he has to set his grip on the thick leather of the couch to maintain balance. Bruce is much stronger than his slighter build belies, almost impossibly strong. Clint is bent. “I suppose I'll have to do it then, but I won't be gentle. That's the last command you get to refuse.”

“Yes,” Clint says. “Please.” To all of it, to everything. 

Natasha's green eyes are on him, he can always feel when she's watching, and he returns her regard. Jesus fuck they make a stunning sight. Tony is licking and sucking and tonguing and twisting and teasing at her nipples with expert alternating of his mouth and fingertips. Natasha's hair is fanning out like flames against the dark leather, and her pupils are big and dark with arousal. _Good idea_ , he signals to her, conceding, and she grins, then turns away. “Mmm, yes. A bit more on the left now, Stark, with conviction--”

Bruce has one hand on the back of Clint's neck, keeping his head down, and then one, then two slicked-up fingers are pressing inside him without pause. Clint snaps his teeth, pushes his feet apart on instinct and ducks lower, making his body a clean arc like a bow waiting to be strung. 

He can't stop his hips from jerking, it's been days, many, many days, much too long, since a man did this to him; he'd thought maybe he wouldn't be with a man again, for a long while, out of respect to Phil or something, but then it was like he could hear Phil in his head and Phil said _You're actually not an idiot, Barton, so don't act like one_ , and Christ yes three fingers now, long skilled extremely able fingers, Bruce has done this quite a lot. Bruce is really good at this which is just fucking great because he doesn't have to think at all while his body screams.

Thoroughness becomes a torturous tease, until Clint is grinding back on Bruce's fingers, his body perpendicular to Bruce's, and over his shoulder Bruce seems to loom and he is huge, he is fucking _huge_ , long and flushed with blood and perfect and Tony Stark had to be one of the luckiest sonsofbitches on the planet. Clint says this aloud, and Bruce laughs, and Tony has Natasha's legs up around his shoulders and is fucking her or she is fucking up on him because Natasha is never simply _fucked_ , and Tony is watching them. 

“You'd better believe it,” agrees Tony, panting, and then his eyes are only on Bruce. “Think you can match me, doctor?”

“I'd like to see you try,” Bruce returns, then Jesus fucking Christ there he is, pushing halfway into Clint on the first go. Clint doesn't hide it now, doesn't keep it from them, lets them all hear the groan that's torn out. Lusty and raw and has all the begging behind it he couldn't shape into words. God God Bruce is curling his hand tight in Clint's hair as he slides deeper, Clint's hair has grown out a little from its close-cut buzz, and he's spreading himself wide as he can go to take Bruce's cock but there's so much of it and nowhere left to go, he's going to start tearing into leather soon.

Bruce's hands free up the pressure on his neck and settle assuredly on his hips, and his cock keeps on going. Clint throws his head back, his throat a taut line, breathing between his teeth, and then Bruce is _in_ , Christ, he's doing it somehow, he's taking all of him, and he's stretched to the limit and is being shoved out of his body and it's exactly what he needs.

Bruce doesn't wait, doesn't give him much time, pulls Clint in closer and pulls out to thrust back in again. Natasha and Tony have stilled a little to watch them, but Bruce flicks up an eyebrow and then starts to fuck Clint in earnest, and holy fucking shit fuck God but Tony Stark is the luckiest asshole in the galaxy. Clint somehow stops feeling shocky and starts moving the right way, finding Bruce's rhythm and keeping with it, and then they're off, a blur of motion and obscene noises, while Natasha and Tony are caught catching up.

It's so good with Bruce thick and hard and filling him just right, positioning him with his hands, and Clint tells him so, earning a smile that spreads warm across Bruce's face. Which is somewhat in opposition to how he shoves his cock so deep Clint's toes curl and Clint makes the sound _please_ so that Bruce keeps doing it just like that. 

Then Natasha cries out, which Clint gives Tony all kinds of credit for, because that decibel from Natasha is difficult for achieve. Bruce slows his thrusts while they look over at the couch and that's almost harder to take, the perfect ache of it, their bodies fit together like it was absurd to be apart. 

Clint bites his lip and watches Natasha's face and Bruce is watching Tony, and since the sight of Natasha coming is one of his favorite in the world, Clint moves back and forth gaining friction, this time pulling Bruce along and into him. They fuck furiously while Tony and Natasha are coming apart, and then Bruce closes his fingers on Clint's cock which Clint had been ignoring and wow Lord God damn he didn't know he was so near the edge.

“Fuck, Banner,” Clint manages, hoping that Bruce will hear the appreciative monologue behind the gasp. Bruce starts stroking him in earnest in time with his momentum, moves up and down on Clint's cock while he moves out and in and out and in. When his fingers push back into Clint's hair and find purchase there, tugging at the short hairs, Clint is utterly undone, doesn't care that he shouts about it. Bruce seems to like that, riding the wave of Clint's body all the way to his own end, delving far as he can go and coming with a delicious breathless moan.

“JARVIS, replay last recorded audio,” says Tony lazily from the couch, and the moan shudders loudly from speakers. Clint laughs helplessly, sucking in mouthfuls of air so that the room comes back into focus, and behind him Bruce is pulling out with almost pornographic slowness, which appeared to be his response to Tony. Clint helps the show by standing close to Bruce when he can stand again and kissing him soundly in thanks, and there's enough tongue and it goes on long enough that Tony says, “Okay, okay, I won't use it as my ringtone. Promise--”

And Bruce breaks away from Clint with a fond look like he hadn't just fucked his brains out and then some, and pads back over to Tony. Curls up on the side Natasha's not on, and Tony's arm is around him in half a second, fingers splaying possessively over Bruce's hipbone. 

Clint shakes his muscles loose and cleans himself off with the remains of his t-shirt and drops down beside Natasha. She quirks a little smile, touching his kiss-stung mouth. “Are my epiphanies excellent or are my epiphanies excellent?" 

“I never doubted you for a second,” he says, dry, and at her upturned eyebrow signals _Always trust you. Always._ Natasha yanks him close so he doesn't see actual emotion flicker in her eyes, she hated showing that, but she lets Clint sleep with his head on her shoulder, and all of them sleep well for a few hours until the next round.

Bruce and Tony invite him to stay the weekend. Clint won't say how grateful he is but he thinks he shows it well enough. For forty-eight hours he loses himself between them in their bed and a variety of other surfaces. They are kind to him about it all, understanding and generous, and they are already so clearly in love with each other it makes his fucking teeth hurt from clenching his jaw. They love each other in a good way, the best way, friendly and attentively and passionately and as equals, as enamored of their mutual brain capacity as they are of fucking each other, which is _a lot_. 

Clint can't hate them for having it because they're so good together and so good to him, but at the end of the weekend, when Bruce says gently and encouragingly that Clint will always be welcome, Clint knows that he needs it too, and that he can't go back again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Quite visually inspired by [ this imagery](http://et-in-arkadia.tumblr.com/post/24185264809/captaindick-turn-around-legs-apart-and).


	4. Chapter 4

Thor says Tony told him he sought distraction, when he traps Clint against the doorjamb. Thor says that this was a righteous instinct, that amongst his comrades, his band of brothers and sisters, it was common to seek the respite of pain and loss in loving. Did one not balance out the other? Mother Nature was truly beautiful, Thor says, a favorite aunt of his. It was hard sometimes for mortals to couple with those of Asgard, Thor says, on occasion there were accidents; but the bravest of heart sometimes could, and he, Clint, was big and bold of heart, Thor says, while Clint spins. That he could survive Thor's touch and then the kiss that shorts out all of Clint's internal circuitry and shoots static up his spine is a good sign, promising, says Thor. I need a very large bed, Thor says, apologetic, explaining its size, then showing his own. Your abilities are considerable, my noble friend, says Thor. If you think that you can indeed undertake me, we will surely persevere together, Thor says, and Clint sees the face of God.


	5. Chapter 5

“I'm sorry,” says Steve, looking surprised, then embarrassed. He pulls away, dropping Clint's caught wrist. “I'm sorry. Tony said -- but I shouldn't have assumed, it's terribly presumptuous--”

“No, no.” Clint is breathing too hard, almost but not quite shaking with it, which Steve is reacting to. One moment he was sparring with Captain America, leaving a trail of destruction across the gym, and the next Steve Rogers was pressing him back into the padded wall, his mouth hot on Clint's. It was without finesse, but it was very warm and close and wet, and done with good intention, and it felt better than nice, and Clint's not in the habit of denying anything of the sort, but this he denies. 

Everyone, everything else but this. Steve is Phil's dream. Was. Isn't for Clint to have. Clint needs to leave him unboxed.

Steve is break-your-heart beautiful, and the floppy blond hair and sweat-slicked bared chest like a life-size G.I. Joe isn't helping his resolve. Clint says, “You need to either start punching again or leave the gym now, Rogers. Okay?”

“Okay,” says Steve, horrifically even more beautiful when confused, with his pride ruffled and his guard back up. His face could inspire men to war and other madness. “I just thought -- that if you were lonely, like I am sometimes, that we might--”

 _You are out of your motherfucking mind and I hate you_ , says Phil, impassioned, in Clint's brain. _When CAPTAIN AMERICA says that he wants to touch you, you drop to your knees and say your prayers and bless your country and you blow him._

“--had a friend I lost once, who meant an awful lot, so I know something about--” Steve is still talking and keeps on talking. Clint hears bits and pieces. “--but of course I understand if you don't want--”

 _I would never have forgiven you for passing this up,_ says Phil from his subconscious. _Stop thinking about me, you ass, and start thinking about what I would do if I were in your shoes and had just been handed the fucking holy grail and the keys to the kingdom._

Clint smiles a little to himself, and then he interrupts Steve's ongoing apologia by pinning him flat against the mats. Is fast and unexpected enough to slide the move past Captain America, who knits his brow in abject confusion and only loses the expression when Clint is kneeling next to him on the spongy floor and is swallowing his perfect American-made cock on the first swallow.

Much later in Steve's bed Steve is wonderful underneath him. Steve never stops moving. He's always touching, scratching, kissing, nipping, asking, telling, doesn't stop talking and keeps up a steady stream of playful conversation. Clint likes that, a lot, being somewhat of a talker himself, and they converse on many subjects while Steve unlocks for his fingers. When Steve is ready Clint is surprised at how hungry he is. He takes Steve's face in his hands and kisses him deep enough for Phil somewhere to feel. Then he fucks Captain America.

He'd meant to be a good bit more casual about it but that's trickier with Steve. Steve is all about the kissing, is insistent on it, and he doesn't stop talking, not even with Clint slamming home hard enough to make several points at once. 

It's difficult not to be thinking thoughts about this because Steve wraps all of his powerful body around Clint, cradles him between his thighs and is breathy and says things like, “You're so good, you're so--” and “Whoa, yes, there” and his name, he says that often: “Clint,” caught on a breath, and once, “Sweet Jesus, Hawkeye,” which Clint likes so much he screws Steve exactly just the same way for so long their bodies run with sweat and stick together as much as bodies can.

He makes Steve come explosively around him and has to lean down to taste the shocked little 'o' of Steve's lips and it's like swallowing the fourth of July. Clint comes with him, one hand threaded into sunny hair while they kiss, and it's strange, moving slow and carefully in him to draw it out while he can, it's strange, not wanting it to end. He pulls out reluctantly, and they still haven't stopped kissing.

When they stop Clint loses his balance and lands heavily on a pillow. Steve is in a sprawl next to him, breathing hard. 

Steve stares dazedly at the ceiling. “Is it always like that with someone new?” he asks, then flushes rose-pink, as though there were things that they could get embarrassed about after fucking through the mattress.

Clint knows what he means. “No.” He lets his fingertips ghost the line of Steve's collarbone. “No, it isn't. That was really something else.”

The first time with Phil had been by the side of an open road. The engine went up in a puff of smoke sixty miles from the nearest gas station and a hundred twenty from the nearest cell tower. In the height of the summer heat, after hours of waiting, Clint had climbed over onto Phil, who sat in the driver's seat, and kissed him, and got his jaw, soft brush of stubble, then tried again and it worked that time. 

It felt like several more hours of waiting but finally Phil's arms came up around him in permission, and Phil tugged him close; and Clint had put the seat down and maneuvered down and blown Phil to within an inch of his life. Two hours of making out like a couple of teenagers, and the rescue wagons still hadn't arrived, and then Phil had fucked Clint for the first time in the cramped backseat of the car. 

Phil hadn't asked about the condoms and lube in the glove compartment, and Phil had never been able to prove conclusively he'd had anything to do with the engine, and it had been messy and right and deep and perfect, and good enough that Clint had been able to persuade him again, with blowjobs, to keep doing it after the car, and after the fourth time Phil had stopped acting like it wasn't happening and after that they hadn't stopped until Loki stopped them. 

“Where do you go?” Steve asks, and Clint blinks his way back. Steve is stretched out next to him, composed of golden lines. “You get a look,” he explains, “and then it's like you're somewhere else.”

“Nowhere far,” says Clint, telling the truth. “Thinking about someone I don't think I can shake.”

“So stop trying,” says Steve, making it a kind of command, and Clint looks at him, because with that tone in his voice he has an authority that made knees bend and platoons of troops snap to attention. “It's a gift when you can't let them go, when they're with you like that. Shows you what they meant to you, what you must've meant to them, you know? It's a good feeling and it doesn't last forever because time makes you forget even when you swear you won't. So stop trying.” 

Clint is staring at him kind of open-mouthed, until Steve closes it, leaning in for a kiss that should be weird because they aren't fucking anymore but isn't, and when he breaks away, Steve says, “It's easier to live with it if you don't push back, if you don't run from it. Think instead of what your people would think about how you're living.” He grins beatifically, tilting his head. “What would they think of you and me right now?”

And Clint laughs, he's really, truly laughing for the first time since Phil died. He can't stop laughing, not even when Steve's arms come over and around him, and Steve holds him through it, and then Steve holds onto him while he cries. 

Afterward Steve doesn't let go. “You should stay if you want. I sleep better with others around,” Steve says, sounding sorry. “Old habit.”

“Got yourself a bunkmate,” says Clint, staying, sleeping through the night. He stays and stays.


End file.
